The Garden

There was no point even trying to call to her.  All he could do was catch his breath.  For an instant, he almost started to follow her, but the landscape already looked alarmingly unfamiliar and, given the way he had seen it shift, he knew the Christian hell they had fled earlier might easily be waiting for him just beyond the nearest shadows.

In fact, as he turned back toward the hearth, he realized that even this place looked a little less inviting—and less vivid—now that she was gone.  Where once he could clearly see the letters carved into the hearthstones, now they seemed to have vanished, as had everything else he hadn’t specifically examined.  Even the hearth fire felt a little colder as he sank down beside it.

All that fine talk of trust, he chided himself.  What a convenient rationale.  He certainly hadn’t trusted her.  She knew far better than he did the danger he had been in with Endicott, yet he was acting like a petulant child, offended that she had dared to protect him from a kind of magic he clearly wasn’t immune to.  Now what?  She had said he would always be able to find her, but what if she didn’t want to be found?  As it occurred to him that he might never see her again, suddenly he felt more alone than he had ever thought possible.

Then something even worse occurred to him.  What if she didn’t break free of Magaña’s influence?  Magaña had already warned her not to get too close to the once-born.  Sooner or later they will come to fear and mistrust you, he had said.  And Diego certainly hadn’t done anything to convince her otherwise.  If she felt as bad as he did, might she not give in to being comforted, even by such a monster, if he loved her?  Which he did.

And what if she did more than that?  While she was probably the least spiteful woman he knew, he was in no position to let her anger come as a surprise.  If she joined forces with Magaña, Diego and his father would be lucky to end up as well off as the del Valles.  As he got to his feet, he realized now that he was going to have to follow her.  But how?

At least the forest was still out there, he thought as he began to walk slowly past the huge uprights, running his hands across their surfaces, thinking how much they suddenly felt like prison bars.  Of course, he could easily have slipped out between them, yet he knew that once he did, this place would melt like a daydream, and he would never find it again.

He also knew he was running out of time.  Provided he didn’t somehow get trapped here, either by Magaña’s magic or his own blundering, he would soon be returning to the dark corridor just outside her cell.  If Magaña knew where he was in that world as well as this one, Zorro might easily be waking up to a fight—if he hadn’t already been thrown in irons again.

Then he realized that he really didn’t even know how long he had been here.  Time did funny things between the worlds, Oreana had said.  But in this world, he wasn’t even sure time had any meaning.  He had drank Magaña’s potion just past the hour of vigil, but by the time he had found Oreana, it was late afternoon.  Worse than that, it had been summer; the quail had already hatched their chicks.  Now the sun had set, but the stars hadn’t come out, and he wasn’t sure if it was because the sky was cloudy or because there were no stars.

Angry at her and himself both, he wanted to throw something, but the only thing he could see that might shatter hard enough to suit him without offending the pagan gods of this place was the earthenware cup he had left beside the altar of the eastern watchtower.  But as he picked it up, suddenly another thought occurred to him.  And then it also occurred to him, as he glanced up at the giant gate just behind the altar, that this time he really ought to say thanks.

Of course it was a crazy idea.  Even if tea could awaken one’s psychic abilities, and even if he did have any such abilities, what good was it to dream of them?  Or to drink tea that wasn’t really tea but, at best, the idea of tea?  On the other hand, said a voice from somewhere deep in the back of his mind, what have you got to lose?

Diego couldn’t help but laugh.  Studying the cup thoughtfully, he finally glanced up at the gate again and shrugged.  "All right, all right," he said out loud.  "I will probably wake up in a lunatic asylum anyway."  Then, idly, he wondered if these Watchers always found mortals so amusing, and almost instantly the voice replied: Only when they are.

He walked over to the cauldron, filled the cup with a ladle of tea, blew on it to cool it and took a careful sip, all the while entertaining the wry suspicion that these Watchers might be female.  Then, after a moment, he set the cup aside and took a few deep breaths, letting go of that idea as well as several others, concentrating only on the task at hand.

For what seemed like quite a while he stood gazing down into the steaming liquid, waiting for something to happen, feeling more foolish by the moment.  The fire beneath the cauldron soon dwindled to coals, and the gathering shadows threatened to engulf even the perimeter stones and the four massive gates around him.  Once they vanished, he knew, it would be too late.  He would awaken on the physical plane.  But why wouldn’t the vision return?  In his mind’s eye, he had seen del Valle earlier, almost as clear as day.  Apart from Oreana, what was missing?

Chuckling bitterly to himself, he shook his head.  Apart from Oreana? She was the one ingredient he really did need.  This ancient circle of stones, the cauldron, the altars—they were all just props in a cheap stage illusion.  She was the only real source of magic.

Suddenly, he found himself remembering the look he had seen on her face that night in the San Diego jail cell, a look he had known even then was only a reflection of his own lust.  Now he felt it welling up inside him again like some wild beast over which he had only the most tenuous control.  He didn’t want to protect her, he wanted to devour her.

He felt his hands trembling as he remembered the feel of her bare skin, the strength of her muscles as she strained against him, even the sound of her soft whimpering.  Yet her struggling only made him relish even more the control he had over her and, like a cat with a mouse, he toyed with her for a while, almost letting her break free once or twice, before he finally forced himself on her.  Then, unable to bear the painful intensity of this vision, he stumbled back and sank to the ground, appalled, shaken, gasping to catch his breath, realizing that he was no better than Magaña.  Or Endicott.

He covered his eyes with his hand and winced, trying to rub out the frightened, bewildered look he had seen on her face—a sweet childlike face.  For an instant, he thought she couldn’t have been more than four or five years old.  Then he realized that this was what she had looked like, so many years ago, to Magaña.  This was what he had done to her.

Just as he had in the jail cell, Diego forced into submission both the feeling and his revulsion to it, knowing it now for what it was—the pure animal instinct that drove all men to do what they must to survive, to fight or flee, to mate, even to die defending their own.  It was the power a sorcerer drew on, he knew.  And he also knew that, in Magaña, it had somehow been twisted, left writhing in pain, to attack whatever came near it—even helpless children.  Carefully, he distanced himself from it, mentally pulling back until he could see both the girl and, now, the older man who still sought to possess her.  Then he saw del Valle too.

"You see?" said Magaña gently, watching her with a curious mix of tenderness and detached amusement.  "Del Valle doesn’t want to go back.  He’s quite happy here.  And why shouldn’t he be?  It’s really quite idyllic, eh?  At least, I always used to think so."

Oreana stood behind a nearby stone bench, one hand resting on del Valle’s shoulder, the other idly stroking his hair as he clung to her waist like a child.  She said nothing.

"He doesn’t think he has any kind of a life to return to on the physical plane," Magaña went on.  "And who am I to say he is mistaken?  Or, for that matter, who are you?  From a young man’s point of view, he has lost everything."

"That is not true," the girl said at last, caressing del Valle’s face.  "You only let him believe it."

"But believing makes it so.  And now," Magaña sighed, "now you would drag him out of this haven, make him face unspeakable pain, all because you think you know what’s best for him."

"You want me to admit there are times when we must cause harm to do good," said the girl.  "Very well, then, it is so.  Anyway, maybe I know this better than you think."

"De la Vega, eh?"  Magaña had been standing on a cobblestone path that skirted the marble fountain in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by beds of lavender, rue and common nightshade, as well as several other flowering herbs.  Now he headed cautiously toward her, pausing to raise his palms at her as she stiffened.  Then he stepped sideways, ducking under a birdcage to reach the tiled walkway beneath the portico.  A light rain had begun to fall, but he seemed far more eager to get close to her than to keep from getting wet.  "Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later," he said, brushing the raindrops from his shoulders.  "The once-born.  They get hurt so easily."

"I could have gotten him killed," she said softly, pursing her lips.  "He was right to fear me."

"We do them no favors, forgetting who we are," said Magaña, smiling the same surprisingly tender smile that looked so out of place on his otherwise cold features.  He was only a few steps away from her now, and without thinking, Diego started toward him.  Then he realized Magaña couldn’t see him—or at least didn’t see him.  Nor did Oreana.  Though she looked up directly at him, she seemed to be looking right through him.

Shaking his head, he reminded himself that this was just a vision, perhaps just a figment of his own imagination.  He was still sitting on the ground just a few steps from the cauldron, staring at the hearth fire now.  But then, as her face came into focus again, he knew she couldn’t see him because she didn’t want to—anymore than del Valle wanted to return to reality, and for much the same reasons.  Wanting to call to her, he bit his lip, knowing she couldn’t hear him either.

"But how can you care so much about saving the mission Indians yet have no qualms about letting this young man die here?" she went on.  "You know he will.  On the physical plane, his body will waste away.  Why did you want me to find him here if you knew he would not leave?  Was it just to prove a point?  Do you expect me to force him?"

"Hardly."  Magaña let his gaze drift from her to del Valle, who seemed blissfully unaware of anything other than the beauty of the garden and the comfort of her touch.  He had let go of her waist now and sat quietly leaning his back against her, watching tiny drops of rain form crystal beads on the lacy circle of a nearby spider web.  Oreana looked down at him too.  Then, as she looked back at Magaña, her eyes grew a little wider.  He shrugged.  "You know, there are many ways of healing.  Many different techniques."

A soft breath, nearly a laugh, escaped her as her eyebrows and her mouth went in different directions.   "Surely you do not expect me to— "

"Oh, come now."  Magaña rolled his eyes, then leveled them at her.  "Do not act like a child; a man’s life is at stake here, you said so yourself."

"But— "

Sighing heavily, he threw up his hands, then added, "Well, I didn’t mean you would have to give yourself to him—certainly not on this plane.  Do you think I would want that?  But there are other ways.  Surely your Aunt Florinda must have taught you at least a few?  Or perhaps she neglected that portion of your training.  If you like, I could . . . ."

Diego wasn’t sure he knew exactly what the man was suggesting, but it was getting harder to draw any but the most obvious conclusions.  Oreana looked decidedly flustered.  She didn’t try to let go of del Valle or move away from him, but her body stiffened a little and she quit stroking his hair.  "You would . . . have me betray Diego," she said at last.

Magaña’s faint smile widened.  Finally it became a cold laugh.  "Well, you’ve certainly seen right through me," he said dryly.  "Betray Diego."  He shook his head.  "How can you betray a man who could never really trust you anyway?  Oh, of course, I know such a man surely would feel betrayed, even if he knew it was just an act of mercy.  But is that the kind of man you really want?  You have powers that you are only now beginning to discover, and they are a gift from la Señora, given not just to you but to all men.  Would you forget your duty as a priestess, rather than injure the pride of some arrogant young criollo?"

Oreana swallowed hard but said nothing.  Magaña, who had come to stand close behind her now, let his mock exasperation melt once again into real compassion.  "You’re still thinking he might overcome his pride and his fear, aren’t you.  Dear child, you must let go of those hopes—for his own good as well as yours.  Loving you will only bring him pain."

Diego, too, swallowed hard.  More than anything, he longed to break through the invisible barrier between them, to go to her, to make her see him, to hold her and tell her that Magaña was wrong.  The only trouble was, he wasn’t sure Magaña was wrong.  Searching his own heart, he didn’t know how he could tell her he wouldn’t be jealous or hurt if she were to touch del Valle in an intimate way.  The mere prospect of having to share her with anyone else had already been painful enough, and she knew it.

As her shoulders began to shake, she closed her eyes, then buried her face in her hands.  Magaña brought his own hand to rest softly on del Valle’s shoulder, and somehow the young man seemed not to notice when Oreana turned away from him.  As she sank down next to him on the stone bench, doubling over with great sobs that wracked her whole body, Magaña finally dared to let his fingers run very lightly over her hair.

"It won’t be so bad," he said.  "Right now, del Valle thinks this is all just a dream.  When he wakes, he will know only that he dreamed of you, and he will see that his manhood is still intact."

Oreana didn’t look up.  Still hiding her face in her hands, she only shook her head.  "But he will think he is in love with me," she said.

"Sí," Magaña shrugged.  "He will be rather difficult to get rid of.  But he may be useful."

"This is the work of a succubus."

"Well, no, actually, it isn’t, you see; they are lost souls, caught between the worlds, and— "

"It is the same," said Oreana bitterly.

"It is the work of witches," Magaña snapped at her.  "It is who we are; it is what we do.  You may as well face up to it.  Oh, I realize your aunts have filled you full of their pious passivism, and what has it gotten them?  How many more of us must die at the hands of the Church before we begin to fight back?  I chose not to run away like your grandmother did.  I took their Inquisition, and I made it my own.  Now, I wield the power of their own priesthood while your aunts can only cower in fear."

Oreana finally looked up at him again, her dark eyes flooded now with surprise, as if she had suddenly seen the last few pieces of a puzzle fall into place.  "If the church ever learns who and what you really are," she said, "many more of us will die."

"They will never find out," said Magaña.  "Even if you try to tell them, they will not believe you; I have seen to that.  Don’t you see, mija?"  Sinking down on his haunches beside her, Magaña studied her tear stained face in earnest sympathy.  Then he sighed.  "I realize what you think of me," he went on.  "You think me a monster.  You find me repulsive.  But I understand you—better than young de la Vega ever can.  I know how you feel, what you are going through.  And I will never turn away from you, even if you decide to continue this affair with him.  And you can, you know, provided you can accept him for what he is and quit trying to change him."

"To change him?"  The girl sniffled and searched his face in bewilderment.  Magaña nodded.

"You must not insist on taking him into your confidence in all matters," he said, "treating him as if he were one of us.  But if you are willing to let him believe what he wants to believe, you can even marry him if you want.  It could be arranged."

"Lie to him?"

"Better than lying to yourself, eh?"

Oreana shook her head, but as she pressed her knuckles into her teeth, Diego thought he could see the doubt and confusion welling up in her eyes.  Magaña watched her carefully.

"Of course, he will tire of you sooner or later," he added.  "And probably sooner.  A man like that loves nothing better than risk and confrontation.  Once you no longer challenge him or frighten him, he will betray you.  You must accept that as well."

As another great sob shook her shoulders, Diego winced.  How could he say for sure that Magaña was wrong about that either?  Even if he was, he had won.  If she did what he wanted her to do, Diego didn’t think he would ever be able to look at her the same way again, even if she didn’t lie about it.  And if she did, well, maybe that really would be for the best.  That way, at least he wouldn’t be tempted to prolong the affair.

"Oreana . . . ."

He didn’t know if he had actually said her name aloud or if it was just the voice of his own desperation.  Maybe it had even been Magaña’s voice.  As the girl continued to cry, the man took out a handkerchief and offered it to her, but rather than using it, she only crumpled it in her hand.  Finally, he gathered himself up to sit beside her on the bench, taking the cloth to dry her eyes and wipe her nose as if she were a child.  Then, as she leaned into his embrace, he patted her back and added, "de la Vega won’t live that long anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he has offered to die to save California, has he not?  I think we ought to let him."

Oreana pulled away and sat up straight.  "He did not know what he was saying," she said.

"Didn’t he?"  Magaña lifted an eyebrow.  "I think you hardly give him enough credit.  He is a hero; he knows what it means to sacrifice.  Don’t you think he deserves a hero’s death?"

"But how will his death help anyone?  He can do far more good as Zorro— "

"Ah, now you see, this is where you are mistaken," said Magaña, as if he had been waiting a long time to talk to someone who could really appreciate the beauty of this insight.  "Right now, all el Zorro really does is keep los pobres from revolt.  He can’t lift them out of poverty or educate them.  He can only keep them thinking someone else will solve their problems for them.  But if he dies, he will become a martyr.  They will rise up and— "

"And they will kill every peninsulare and every fair-skinned criollo they can lay their hands on—just as they did in Guanajuato." (1)

"Not if they knew he was killed by a Yanqui—an Americano."

"Señor Endicott."

Magaña could barely contain his self-satisfied smile.  "Don’t you see how it would bring them all together?" he said.  "The Yanquis would be hated and feared, just like the Jews."

As Oreana got to her feet, Magaña did too and handed her the handkerchief again.  This time she took it and wiped her own nose, but tears still ran down her cheeks.

"Oh, it wouldn’t have to happen right away," Magaña went on in a soothing tone.  "De la Vega could keep his father’s land, which you, of course, would control if you became the mother of his sons.  I could be content just to increase my holdings in the north.  What do you say?"

The girl winced, but she didn’t say no.

"Well, think it over," said Magaña with a shrug.  "Oh, and you probably should see to del Valle soon, if you intend to—not that it matters to me.  Now that I have his confession, I think his lands will soon be reassigned.  And I think the governor will agree that I would be the most fitting executor.  He does have a healthy respect for the Inquisition."

She nodded absently, then turned to the young man again as Diego clenched his jaw.  Was she really going to do this?

"Please, Oreana . . . ."  He forced himself to say the bitter tasting words.  "There must be another way."  Then, though he almost couldn’t believe it, he heard himself add, "if you must do this, I will forgive you.  I do forgive you, and I will try to trust you.  But please don’t shut me out.  Don’t leave me."

Oreana came around the other side of the bench from where she and Magaña had been sitting.  Then, settling down beside del Valle, she looked up at the older man again.

"Oh," he said.  "I suppose you would like some privacy.  Very well."  And he turned around.  But as he did, Oreana glanced up in the other direction, just for an instant, and this time Diego could have sworn she did see him.  Or perhaps it was only wishful thinking.  Then, turning back to del Valle, she placed her hand carefully on his thigh, moving it a little toward her.  But just when Diego knew that he, too, would have to look away, to his surprise, she took out the handkerchief again, turned around, drew her knife and cut a small leafy shoot from a nearby flowering plant.  Then, quickly, she wrapped the leaves in the cloth, put them in her pocket and stuck the knife back in its sheath.

Puzzled, Diego blinked and shook his head, wondering just what had happened.  Unfortunately, he had little time to wonder.  No sooner did he find himself back in the faint glow of the hearth fire in the temple than he felt an odd physical sensation.  His body felt insubstantial, like an empty chrysalis, as though he had been drawn completely out of himself somehow.  But at the same time he felt sluggish and ungainly.

Then a sharp pain shot through his stomach, and he knew what was happening.  He was waking up in the physical world.  His first instinct was to scramble to his feet, but his legs took a while getting the message.  Instead, they only shoved him weakly against the cool rock wall, leaving him to feel his way up the side of it with one hand while he brought the gloved fingers of the other hand up to the side of his masked face, as if to adjust, not just the mask, but his vision.

He wasn’t surprised at how dark it was.  In fact, he was surprised that there was any light at all, but once he realized where he was, only the dull pain in his head kept him from being utterly astonished, since it assured him that he must still be seeing things.

There, in the flickering light of a few votive candles, stood a small altar set with more candles, a chalice, altar bells and a censer.  The smell of heavy bitter incense still lingered in the air.  Nearby in a dish lay the shiny black beads of a rosary, and, sitting near them, a black vase that held the small bare branch of a long dead plant, but now, of course, without the spider’s web.  Everything looked just as it had in the vision he had shared with Oreana by the lake.

Quickly he grabbed and lit a nearby torch, shoving it into a sconce on the wall.  But as he looked around, el Zorro’s surprise didn’t diminish, for he realized that this tiny chapel lay just on the other side of the jail cell where he had found Oreana.  Somehow he had managed to awaken, not in the hall that led down from the kitchen, but in the larger passage, the main passage, where he had seen Magaña and the soldiers.  Now, no trace of them remained, but off to his left, he saw the dark open mouth of the tunnel he knew would lead back to the caves below the tannery.

How in the world had he come to be here?  He had to assume that either he had somehow moved himself without knowing it, let alone without being seen, or that someone else had moved him.  But who, and why here?  If Magaña had done it, why hadn’t he just locked him up?  The only other possibility, which seemed at once the simplest yet least likely, was that somehow el Zorro had disappeared from the physical world altogether, only to reappear in this place.

To the right of the chapel he could see a small stone stairway going up, and as he reached the head of the stairs, he realized that this cavern was indeed right below the church’s main altar, just as he had thought.  A lever in the wall released a catch that let him slide open a panel in one of the lower sections of the richly carved altarpiece in the alcove behind it.

But as he peered out through a crack, he saw it was now broad daylight, maybe even close to midday, judging by the angle of the sunlight through the windows.  And the church was empty, which had to mean that today wasn’t Sunday.  And that could only mean he had somehow lost an entire day—maybe more.

His mind raced as he tried to imagine all that could have happened in that time.  Were his father and del Valle still captives?  Were they even still alive?  Had Oreana escaped?  Perhaps she and Magaña were just now waking up as well, a possibility that seemed far too optimistic.  It was also possible that he had simply dreamed the whole episode.  As he shut the panel and headed back down the stairway, Zorro hadn’t the least idea what to think or what to expect.  But he did know his life was just one of the things he now stood to lose.